A Roaming Scientist Looks at 45

The Huffington Post used to be a great place for center-to-slightly left leaning news coverage.

Over the last five years it has continued to slide as a serious news source. During the holidays, I finally decided it no longer merited a stop during my daily news perusal. I stopped reading on January 1st and haven’t been back since. Here’s why.

1. The annoying click bait titles are annoying.

“You won’t believe what this politician said next.” or “The top nine foods you need to eat RIGHT NOW” simply does not qualify as journalism. Give me an informative title to judge if I want to read your content please.

2. The annoying featured ads inserted directly into news content are annoying.

This is particularly egregious on the mobile app with “Presented by…” some corporate sponsor and formatting to look like any other of their other low-brow click bait articles.

Which brings me to…

3. A vast majority of the worthy content on HuffPost comes from 3rd party sites anyways.

The HuffPost reposts things from the NY Times and other sites anyways. I prefer to get my content from primary sources.

There are a few select people I continue to follow on Twitter but I have pretty much wiped the HuffPost from my slate.

Since I’m not going news free, I’ve replaced it with a renewed subscription to Harper’s, The New York Review, and of course, the New Yorker. For breaking news, Twitter.